2008-01-08
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Tímamót, or Changes in English. An upbeat, heartwarming story about Gudjon, Sigurbjorn and Steinthor who lived together for decades along with several other inhabitants in the Tjaldanes Institution, in a peaceful valley close to Reykjavik. When a decision is made to close down the institution, their life takes an unexpected turn and they discover a new side to life and to themselves.
A riveting expose about the personalities of murderers and their motives. This 72 minute film covers the McDonalds' restaurant massacre, President Reagan's assassination attempt, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas and others.
This film is a story about that time in the Baltics, Latvia, and Riga. Young rebels of 1960s – nonconformists, hippies and beatniks – have turned into a generation of well-known writers, poets, musicians, directors, as well as politicians of the new independent Latvia. The ones who were 18, 20, or 25 in 1960s are half a century older today. The protagonists of the film are united by the bohemian gathering place of their youth, a small nameless cafe in the Old Town of Riga, commonly referred to as “Kaza” (The Goat). This place is surrounded by legends, myths and humorous stories.
As the healthcare system in Venezuela comes crashing down and millions of people flee the country, a doctor, a pharmacist, an activist and two cancer patients struggle to survive amidst the chaos. They face the daily dilemma of choosing to stay or flee. Activist Francisco Valencia puts his life on the line to distribute medicines illegally, but how long can he keep it up?
Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
A self-potrait of the influent Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
Cut off from his loved ones due to the strict COVID-19 lockdown at the long-term care facility where he lives, a quadriplegic rabbi is filmed by his daughter while reflecting on love, mortality and longing.
SNIPERS: BULLETPROOF deconstructs and analyzes the little known sniper events that have occurred when no other course of action was possible. The people who planned the takedowns, or pulled the trigger, share their techniques and bring to light the many factors that had to be considered in each mission: terrain, wind speed, temperature, elevation changes... all are critical to taking out targets considered bulletproof. A sniper has one chance, one breath, to rise to the occasion and save the day... if they miss, there may never be another opportunity. As these never told before stories unfold, the viewer also learns about the high tech gear each sniper carries on their classified missions.
In Bettina Büttner’s exquisitely lucid documentary Kinder (Kids), childhood dysfunction, loneliness, and pent-up emotion run wild at an all-boys group home in southern Germany. The children interned here include ten-year-olds Marvin and Tommy. Marvin, fiddling with a mini plastic Lego sword, explains matter-of-factly to the camera, “This is a knife. You use it to cut stomachs open.” Dennis, who is even younger, is seen in a hysteric fit, mimicking some pornographic scene. Boys will be boys, but innocence is disproportionately spare here. Choosing not to dwell on the harsh specifics, Büttner reveals the disconcerting manner in which traumatic episodes can manifest themselves in the mundane — a game of Lego, Hide and Seek, or Truth or Dare. Filmed in lapidary black-and-white, Büttner’s fascinating film sheds light on childhood from the boys’ characteristically disadvantaged perspective — one not yet fully cognizant — leaving much ethically to ponder over.
We admire beauty; we recoil from bodies that are marred, disfigured, different. Didier Cros’ moving, intimate film forces us to question what underlies our notions of beauty as we join a talented photographer taking stunning portraits of several people with profound visible scars which have dictated certain elements of their lives but have not come to define their humanity. The subjects' perceptions of themselves are dynamic, unexpected, and even heartwarming. This is an unforgettable journey to be shared with the world.
"Africa Light" - as white local citizens call Namibia. The name suggests romance, the beauty of nature and promises a life without any problems in a country where the difference between rich and poor could hardly be greater. Namibia does not give that impression of it. If you look at its surface it seems like Africa in its most innocent and civilized form. It is a country that is so inviting to dream by its spectacular landscape, stunning scenery and fascinating wildlife. It has a very strong tourism structure and the government gets a lot of money with its magical attraction. But despite its grandiose splendor it is an endless gray zone as well. It oscillates between tradition and modernity, between the cattle in the country and the slums in the city. It shuttles from colonial times, land property reform to minimum wage for everyone. It fluctuates between socialism and cold calculated market economy.
A feature length documentary which invites the viewer to rediscover an enchanted cosmos in the modern world by awakening to the divine within. The film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstasy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and evolutionary awareness,electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds.
A portrait of a group of youngsters in Agger at the west coast of Jutland. They listen to the raw metalrock. They dress in leather and rivets. And that doesn't exactly lessen the generational divide.
In Their Hands follows the psychotherapy of vulnerable people, sometimes destroyed by acts of torture.Their speech deals with an inhuman past: they want to stop the pain, rule out the folly and protect their family from violence in them, be understood and recognized - these are the issues that drive them.
The Hugo's Brain is a French documentary-drama about autism. The documentary crosses authentic autistic stories with a fiction story about the life of an autistic (Hugo), from childhood to adulthood, portraying his difficulties and his handicap.
After being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a young mother writes a letter to her daughter about their family’s collective journey to acceptance.
As clichés go, in 1999 the World as we knew it was about to change - and we'd been expecting it. Since childhood we'd been promised that the 21st century would bring us dramatic new technologies like flying cars and Utopian cities. Instead it bought us the smart-phone, social media, and virtual societies. And as it turns out these technologies began to transform society almost as dramatically as the moon colonies we'd been expecting. Now over a decade into the revolution, 'DSKNECTD' explores how digital communication technology is profoundly changing the way we interact and experience each other - for the good and for the bad.
A documentary exploring the history and growing dangers surrounding the seemingly innocuous Myers–Briggs personality test.